Month: April, 2014

A two week vacation from everything Buffalo seems like a life time, oddly. It was winter when I left for Florida and I returned to what can only be described as Spring. Today’s high temperature in Buffalo is 71F; which is a few degrees warmer than the high temperature the first few days I was in Tampa. Odd that….

I have made some resolutions whilst away. First to social media and play random games less as they suck all available time away. Blog more, in addition to randomly surfing topics which amuse me (blog on those as well). Write more and read less. I got sucked into a few novels of considerable length that I can’t put down… or finish for that matter. There was only one book I ever left unfinished in my lifetime- which shall go unnamed. Time to just plow through them and call it a year. I’m also going to stop randomly downloading books from self published authors who are giving away their material for free as a promotion– not because the works are bad, but because I now have far too many books in my queue that I can not feasibly finish reading all of them by Christmas….. 2015.

Lastly, I am going to spend more time focusing on me and my head space…. a little less talk radio on the way to work, and more time just working through ideas that have been playing through my mind. The two week vacation worked as a good release valve for built up tension accumulated since my last vacation in March 2013– now time to move forward into 2014.

Next benchmark is July, where I will be off for a beach vacation with quite a few children. It’s more fun than it sounds……

It is amazing to me how much effort I expended into preparing for a two week vacation. Between the four weeks of training I had to provide to everyone back at home so that the ship didn’t sink in my absence and dodging calls from head hunting agencies trying to recruit me elsewhere, it was a bit trying. I have far too many vacations planned between now and July to enable me to be career mobile. I got through the shit months with not a peep from these other firms. Can’t jump ship while I’m cashing out the good will I have accumulated.

The whole thing left me very conflicted. Here I am doing “knowledge transfer” like I am leaving forever, being wooed by other companies to do just that, having to put them off indefinitely- which put them very off, to say the least– knowing I would only be gone for two weeks. There was a feeling of disconnect surrounding the whole affair. “We’ll talk again in July,” was my stock response to all inquiries.

The level of hostility I experienced at work from both management above me and my subordinates was at the level I would have expected; though I have difficulties living in a world where this has to be the case, I accept it as an inevitable outcome. Fuck, I am always a little resentful internally when other people can escape– I always try to limit how much I present this to the offending party. Thus never seems to be the case when I leave for an extended period of time.

Four days into the vacation, and I haven’t heard a peep from them. Either the four fucking weeks of training covered enough scenarios they’d run into or they decided I’d clean up the mess when I return. I’m not sure what is more likely. I hope for the former and dread the later.

I have spent the first four days of this vacation decompressing. I have a lot of trouble letting myself be idle, time to lick wounds and other such nonsense. It is a necessary part of the process. One that I am finally learning to embrace.

And I’m not trying to make it sound like everyone back home can go fuck themselves… but… well… I guess everyone back home can go fuck themselves.